The controversial system rolled out last year allows police to take an image of an unknown person and run it through a database of 23 million Ohio driver's license photos and prison mug shots to try to establish a match.

About 30,000 police officers and others could directly access the system when it was first deployed. The American Civil Liberties Union and others complained it invites abuse and privacy violations.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that access has now been cut to 5,594, according to numbers released by DeWine's office this week. That's a drop of 29 percent since April.